Lydia Lunch

Poet, queen of rock. At 16, she ran away from her upstate-NY home
to crash in Chelsea. Got a job at CBGB's, and began setting words to
music - that was the start of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and "No Wave", a term she coined. Leader of the subsequent 8 Eyed Spy, and collaborator, variously, with Kim Gordon (in the Harry Crews one-off), Jim "Foetus" Thirlwell, Rowland S Howard (of The Birthday Party), Exene Cervenka, and others. Made a cameo appearance on
"Death Valley '69".

I first heard Lydia Lunch doing vocals with the Foetus Symphony Orchestra back when I was in University. I found her interesting enough to pick up more of her stuff, and soon started noticing her all over the place. Most of the time she appears in samples taken from her spoken word, but sometimes she'll show up in less ... conventional ways. For example, various industrial celebrities have their way with her in one of Richard Kern's films. Be forewarned that her stuff is very, very heavy going - I've had friends angrily make me turn her off. Nonetheless, I recommend that everyone hear her at least once, if only to experience art coming from such a dark, dark place.

“In my films and my spoken word I try to understand the drama of escalation, the psychology behind this violence which keeps women in the position of perpetual victims, not because they enjoy battery, but because they enjoy this escalation of emotions. If they began in their childhoods having their emotions raped out of them, then the only thing that might give them any emotional stimulation is violence. Even when I explain this as clearly as I just did, this aspect of my work often gets misunderstood. People say “You’re making these films and they’re pornographic and exploitative and how could you cast yourself in those positions?” Well, because I’ve been through it and so have a lot of other women that I know— and men. And the bottom line is to try and understand that psychology. In my films, I am talking about women who repeatedly get into violating situations because they haven’t figured out that they are addicted to escalation. It’s a real taboo. These films are brutal. They’re not softened. Fingered especially is an ugly, brutal film. People say they can’t take 25 minutes of it. Some women live that for forty or sixty years.”

“From my own experience, this is the bottom line: when you’ve been battered as a child, whether it’s psychologically battered, emotionally, or physically, you defense is to become numb. Is to become dead. Is to feel nothing. You go through that state for years, where you feel nothing. No highs, no lows. The only way that you can be stimulated, that you can feel anything, is when you’re threatened, is when you are once again being violated, because to feel pain, to feel horror, to feel terror, to feel fear, is better than feeling dead. There is nothing worse than feeling dead. That’s part of the "willing victim" syndrome. They know they should not be doing what they are doing, they know it’s a ridiculous situation. The other aspect is the addiction to this adrenal high. The whole psychology of an episode of battery— the forgiveness, the intimacy again, and then the escalation to the battery—that’s an addiction. That’s a real roller-coaster, which, again, is better than feeling dead.”

“All of the issues I am dealing with are personal issues of pain which I know affect many other people. People have asked me since the beginning, “How can you make those films, how can you tell these stories that are so personal, this is your abuse, how can you show it without fictionalizing it?” Well, my pain is a universal pain; it’s not so unique to myself. No pain is unique. Pain is a universal problem. Because I am willing to put myself on the stage or on the screen and use real experience, because I am not interested in fiction, I can only hope that gives power to other people. If people can’t relate because it’s too brutal, then they don’t have to. I’m creating for other people who have had intense highs and lows in their lives and are trying to find balance. My whole struggle has always been for balance even if it doesn’t appear that way. I am searching to understand my own obsessions, my own pain, and also how not to just carry on the cycle of pain. That’s really the goal. Whether I’ve achieved that or not is questionable. It might be a life long struggle, and I think I am far more balanced now that I’ve ever been. I’m not a miserable person, although I deal with miserable subjects. It would be hard to compromise my passion—it’s hard to contain it!”

-- quotes taken from an interview conducted by Gwen Albert at U Knihumolu in Prague on March 1, 1997 and printed in Jejeune: America Eats Her Young (magazine).